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Don’t judge a book by its author.

I’m experiencing such a decent knock-on with sales at the moment on the back of my Amazon free listing that I have taken the plunge and quit my job – one of them, anyway.

This morning, I told the newsagent in the village to stuff his Sunday papers where the sun don’t shine – I’m not doing that paper-round ever again. Naturally, he demanded that the company vehicle be returned immediately. No problem – I was too big for that bike anyway and I hated the colour and the tinsel streamers that hung from the handlebars to dance in the breeze. I let the tyres down before I left.

I only took the crummy job to pay for luxuries for my family – things like bread and milk. But with the sales that I’m accruing in the Romney and Marsh series we’re necking gold-top till we puke and toasting sliced organic wholemeal loaves every morning for fun and frisbees.

Onwards and upwards.

­Part 2

I’m very excited about the forthcoming self-publication of my two Acer Sansom novels. I have the cover art, which I’m thrilled with. Knowing these two books very well indeed (I should do; I wrote them) I feel that the covers do a great job of simply, effectively and appropriately suggesting something of what the reader should expect from them, while also making it obvious that they are related to each other in a series. If they don’t then that’s your problem. I love them.

My over-riding concern with self-publishing these books under my own name is that people who may have read a Romney and Marsh File or three and enjoyed them enough to look out for something else from me might notice them and download them under the impression that they will be similar reads. They are not. They are so much better! Not really. But in their own way, I honestly think that if the reader will give them a chance then they won’t be disappointed, providing that said reader has some idea of what to expect. That’s where my job gets a little difficult.

I’ve got the Amazon blurb written and I like it, but I’m still not sure what category to list them under. They are sort of thrillers, but not white-knuckle, page-tearing, big-toilet-inducing thumpers. They are sort of action adventure, but not shooting up jungles of pygmies armed with blow-pipes, arrows tipped with lethal poisons. They are sort of crime novels, but not in a Romney and Marsh whodunit way.

I wonder if I should try to make all this clear on the book summary page when I list them. The very last thing I want is for people to feel miffed because they weren’t what they were looking for or expecting. Actually, the very last thing that I want is to die a slow and painful death in abject poverty surrounded by cats that are waiting to chew on my warm corpse.

I’m trying to remain philosophical about it. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Right? Mind you, it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I thought about providing hot meals for strays, but there’s more than one way to feed a cat.